A North Little Rock man indicted by the U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock as part of the Desmond Kelley drug trafficking organization -- which federal authorities said was responsible for distributing large quantities of the drug fentanyl in Central Arkansas -- was sentenced Friday to a year and one day in prison on one count of use of a telephone to facilitate a drug trafficking crime.
Jamie Goff, 29, pleaded guilty to the charge last December in exchange for the government's agreement to dismiss one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. He was facing a maximum sentence of four years in prison and possible fine up to $250,000. The recommended sentencing guideline range for Goff's offense was 12 to 18 months in prison or five years probation and a fine ranging between $4,000 and $40,000.
U.S. District Judge Brian Miller was urged by Goff's attorney, James Winnfield Wyatt, to sentence his client to a term of probation in an impassioned plea for leniency. Wyatt said Goff's mother and father had both gone to prison when he was young and he lived with his grandfather until he and his siblings were removed to foster care by the state Department of Human Services. He said Goff became addicted to opioids at a young age.
Wyatt said that Goff's role was not as a drug dealer but as an addict who pooled his resources with a friend to purchase drugs for their own use and that Goff had begun working to break his cycle of addiction even before he was indicted.
He said later that when the indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on Oct. 2, 2019, Goff, unaware of the pending charges, had entered a drug rehabilitation program in Florida. Court documents from the Southern District of Florida showed that Goff was arrested Oct. 30, 2019, by authorities in Palm Beach, Fla. and returned to Arkansas.
"All of his legal problems have revolved around this addiction," said Wyatt, who added that Goff had undergone a transformation since his arrest. "In the pre-sentence report, it has a picture of his mugshot when he was brought in. That kid and this young man don't look like the same person. ... He's not the same person he was two or three years ago."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant said the government did not object to probation but with a caveat.
"If he violates his terms of probation, the United States will come back and ask the court to essentially max him," Bryant said. "Because we agreed not to object to a probationary sentence in this case."
In a brief statement, Goff thanked the prosecution, saying that the indictment had likely saved his life.
"I lived my life the past decade like I was stuck in a hole I'd never get out of," he said. "This saved my life. It gave me the chance to be back home with my girlfriend, with my child, and to right the wrongs I've done for so many years."
But Miller, after weighing all of the factors involved, pointed out that Goff had been arrested and sentenced to probation five times in the past and said that to place him on probation a sixth time would "make a mockery of the law."
"At some point there are old debts that have to be paid and this is that occasion," Miller said. "The truth is I have a responsibility and I can't give you probation."
But, the judge said, by sentencing him to 12 months and a day, Goff can qualify for a good time sentence reduction of up to 55 days, which Miller said he would not be eligible for under a lesser sentence. Also, the judge allowed Goff until May 17 to report to whichever Bureau of Prisons facility he is designated to serve out his sentence.
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Role in drug trafficking gets NLR man prison term - Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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